JUVENILE JUSTICE

New York’s juvenile justice system has a huge variety of programs that serve justice-involved youth, many of which include highly-supervised afterschool programs. Network for Youth Success recognizes that the juvenile justice and youth development fields have much to learn from each other as New York seeks to better serve its most at-risk youth.

Seeking to improve coordination between these two fields, Network for Youth Success has developed an overview of the current juvenile justice landscape across the state for the benefit of the Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELO) field. The State of Youth Justice in New York includes key terminologies, information on changes to the system, examples of existing programs that bridge ELO and juvenile justice approaches, and multiple resources relating to new and existing juvenile justice work.

This overview should help ELO providers to better understand the juvenile justice system and how to promote collaboration with juvenile justice programs to support local youth. Network for Youth Success encourages ELO providers to engage juvenile justice programs in their area, including by working with their Regional Youth Justice Teams.

programs making a positive difference in young people’s lives, and lifts up law enforcement voices who see the influence programs can have in their community.

The hours immediately after school lets out were first dubbed the “Prime Time for JuvenileCrime” in a report published by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids in 2000. Since the time of that first report, participation in afterschool programs has grown by more than 60%, and juvenilecrime has decreased by 70%.